Murdered French girl Maelys will 'haunt' killer, says mother
The case of Maelys de Araujo has gripped France.
PONT-DE-BEAUVOISIN (AFP) - The mother of a murdered French girl whose remains were found this week said her child would "haunt" the ex-soldier who has finally confessed to killing her after months of interrogation.
The case of Maelys de Araujo, who vanished in August while attending a wedding near Chambery in the Alps with her parents, has gripped France.
On Wednesday, chief suspect Nordahl Lelandais, 34, admitted to killing the eight-year-old child and led investigators to her remains after police found a trace of her blood in his black Audi car.
Lelandais, a former military dog-handler who is also charged with murdering a hitchhiking soldier last April, claimed he killed Maelys "by mistake" but has so far refused to give details of her death.
In a Facebook post late Wednesday, the child’s grief-stricken mother Jennifer Cleyet-Marrel called him a "murderer" and a "monster" and said he would be haunted by his deeds.
"I had to wait five-and-a-half months before this monster finally broke his silence," she said, adding: "Maelys will haunt you night and day in prison until you die and go to hell."
Relatives of the dead soldier, 24-year-old Arthur Noyer, said they too were hoping to learn the truth about his death.
Noyer was last seen in the early hours of April 12, 2017, hitchhiking in Chambery after leaving a nightclub. Parts of his skull were found on a hiking tail in Montmelian, near Chambery, in September.
Telephone records place Noyer and Lelandais in the same area at the same time on the night of the dead man’s disappearance.
The Noyer family’s lawyer Bernard Boulloud told France Info radio on Thursday he hoped Lelandais would "continue his confessions to the end".
Investigators have also reopened a number of cases of people who vanished in the area between 2010 and 2016 to determine whether Lelandais played a part in their disappearance.
His lawyer Alain Jakubowicz denied his client, who was found to have carried out internet searches on the decomposition of the human body after Noyer’s disappearance, is a serial killer.
"There is not the slightest proof," he said.
Car dismantled
Lelandais, who is single, was a guest of the groom at the wedding and spent part of the evening playing with Maelys before she disappeared in the early hours of the morning.
He was charged with her murder in November.
The day after the wedding, as a massive search got under way for the little girl, Lelandais was seen scrubbing down his car inside and out.
An initial search of the vehicle revealed a trace of Maelys’s DNA on the dashboard which he argued she could have left while playing.
CCTV images also showed a silhouette in a white dress, like the one Maelys was wearing, being driven away in Lelandais’s car on the night of the wedding.
Investigators then carried out a more extensive search for fluids that could have trickled down through the seats.
"We searched every inch of the car, we dismantled the panels and everything else that someone cleaning the car cannot get to," police forensic expert Patrick Touron told LCI television.
On Wednesday, police found a skull and bones at the spot where Lelandais said he had hidden the body.
On Thursday, around 20 forensic experts with sniffer dogs combed the hills in the snow and fog for the rest of Maelys’s remains.
Grenoble prosecutor Jean-Yves Coquillat said Lelandais had promised to explain the circumstances of her death once her body was found.
"I am sure he will cooperate fully," his lawyer Jakubowicz said.
